


An Unassisted Body in Freefall

by Deannie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five possibilities…. Perhaps even that was too clever. Maybe there always was only one choice here... (Set during "Reichenbach Fall")</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unassisted Body in Freefall

Greg Lestrade once said of Sherlock Holmes that he had more thoughts in a minute than most men had in a day. 

“Thank God,” he’d told his buddies, with a tolerant grin Sherlock’s way, “Thank God, he only has time to say half of what he’s thinking!”

Not strictly true—Sherlock can speak quite rapidly and could certainly speak most of what he’s thinking, he just doesn’t bother to, as none of them is going to be able to follow him, anyway.

Right now, as Sherlock ascends the stairs of Bart’s pathology building, heading for the roof and his one hope at regaining his life, that five-year-old memory of Lestrade, relaxed and grinning with a pint in his hand, is sharing Sherlock’s mind with exactly nine other thoughts. His mind lays them out in a familiar list.

1.   Average post-mortem cooling speeds by weight and body type,  
2.   how very much he hopes he spent a sleepless night orchestrating this madness for nothing,  
3.   the accuracy of GPS on various cellphone models (taking into account service carrier, of course),  
4.   typical blood spray patterns from severe cranial trauma,  
5.   exactly how angry John Watson is likely to be given each of the five possible outcomes of this meeting on the roof,  
6.   the probable locations of twelve different people (including the aforementioned John Watson),  
7.   crisis management of psychopathic individuals,  
8.   tactics for extracting information—violently, if need be, and  
9.   the certainty that James Moriarty’s downfall would be worth almost any price Sherlock himself has to pay.

Pursuant to points five and nine, Sherlock’s internal hard drive replays John’s outburst this morning. Remarkable that it was really only 20 minutes ago…

> The call from the “paramedic” had energized and alarmed John just as Sherlock had intended, setting him even more off-balance. Sherlock needed him off balance. There was no way this was going to work if John was sharp.
> 
> “Doesn’t she mean anything to you?” John asked, immediately answering his own question. “You once half-killed a man for laying a finger on her!” 
> 
> “She’s my landlady,” Sherlock replied coldly, responding in a way that played on more of the doubts in John’s mind, judging by the fire in the soldier’s eyes.
> 
> “She’s dying, you _machine—“_ Sherlock could see time ticking for John. He had to get to Baker Street. He had to get to his friend.
> 
> “Sod this,” John gritted after a moment. “Sod this—you stay here if you want, on your own.”
> 
> “Alone is what I have,” Sherlock intoned, not looking at John. He worried that even a John this angry and upset would be able to catch him out. “Alone protects me.”
> 
> “No,” John had refuted coldly as he walked out. “Friends protect people.”
> 
> Sherlock might have laughed. The comment was so patently apropos to the current situation, it almost sounded as if it had been written for one of those crap telly detective shows he and John so enjoyed ridiculing.

_Had_ so enjoyed.

He’s at the door to the roof now, hearing that must-be-out-of-tune sound that comes before one is close enough to hear all the notes of a chord. Opening the door with a clang, his auditory dissonance resolves itself into a kind of cognitive dissonance as he takes in James Moriarty, sitting on the edge of the roof, listening to his phone play “Stayin’ Alive.”

Moriarty is back in control again, Sherlock sees. Clad once more in his expensive suit and overcoat, not a hair out of place, he gives off the air of a man who knows he can’t lose.

Good, thinks Sherlock, mind flashing back to a crag-toothed cabbie with his games and vials. I love the geniuses. So eager to get caught. He purposely shies away from the reminder that that was the first time he and John matched wits together with the enemy.

The first time John Watson saved his life.

“Ah,” Moriarty drawls in his bored tone. “Here we are at last. You and me, Sherlock, and our problem—the Final Problem.” Because it’s important that their ultimate encounter have a name. A significance.

“Stayin’ alive!” he crows, lifting his phone aloft as if to share the 70s crap music with the world. “It’s so boring, isn’t it?” He jams a finger on the keypad, shutting off the drivel. _“_ It’s just ... _staying—“_ He seems prepared to say more, but collapses his head into his hand as if it isn’t worth the trouble.

Sherlock takes the opportunity to scan the nearby rooftops. Nothing out of place… Windows…. Hard to be certain, but it doesn’t appear there are any rifles at the ready…

 _“_ All my life I’ve been searching for distractions. You were the best distraction and now I don’t even have _you_. Because I’ve beaten you.”

Sherlock whips his head around to stare at the man. How certain is Moriarty of that? Certain enough to show his hand too soon? Certain enough to make a mistake already?

He isn’t really going to make it out of here, is he? Will John be berating him tonight for lying about Mrs. Hudson, for scaring him that way, instead of…

“And you know what?” Moriarty continues. “In the end it was easy.”

 _Five possibilities._ In Sherlock’s mind, there are currently five possible outcomes:

1\. Moriarty dies and all safe.  
2\. Moriarty dies and so does John--possibly Mrs. Hudson and perhaps Lestrade as well  
3\. Sherlock dies and Moriarty wins  
4\. Sherlock dies and takes Moriarty with him, and…  
5\. The Final Solution (emphasis added for melodramatic effect, of course).

Sherlock wonders what it says about him that he would actually prefer Possibility Three or Four to Five. But the unacceptability of Possibility Two is what has driven him up to this rooftop in the first place. Through the fabric, he fingers the cellphone in his left-hand coat pocket. 

The game—both its costs and its prizes—firm in his mind, Sherlock stands tall, hands behind his back, waiting for Moriarty to display his mental prowess. There’s no way the madman will be able to resist showing off.

 _They’ll say you were a show-off, too, Sherlock,_ his mind taunts him. _In your obituary._

Moriarty’s face falls. “It was easy,” he repeats, a petulant, exhausted toddler. “Now I’ve got to go back to playing with the ordinary people. And it turns out _you’re_ ordinary, just like all of them.”

Sherlock waits. In the real world, it was never this easy: Psychopath to psychopath—spilling his entire plan... He should be berating a television right about now, while John smiles indulgently in the background.

But this, he reminds himself, _is_ reality. Insane as that may seem.

 _“_ Ah well!” Moriarty wipes the petulance from his face like an actor shedding makeup. He’s back in control. Back to showing off. He rises, approaching Sherlock from the side. More dramatic that way, Sherlock thinks. The thought would be inane if Moriarty’s mental state wasn’t so completely crucial to the playing of this particular game.

 _“_ Did you almost start to wonder if I was real? Did I nearly get you?”

Sherlock knows exactly what he’s talking about. “Richard Brook.”

Moriarty nods. “Nobody seems to get the joke,” he laments. “But you do.”

“Of course,” Sherlock replies dutifully, a student reciting for the headmaster. He’ll forebear to mention that, while John Watson hadn’t gotten the joke, he hadn’t bought the lie, either.

Except perhaps that little bit… Like Lestrade. That thought you have to fight not to listen to….

“Attaboy.”

The pedantic prompt draws Sherlock from those thoughts and back into the current fight.

“Rich Brook in German is Reichen Bach—the case that made my name.”

Moriarty is too bored to even smile, as he murmurs in his American accent, “Just tryin’ to have some fun.”

Time to show a card of my own, Sherlock muses, tapping out the binary code he remembers so exactly. He sent it to Mycroft earlier. _Might be of use to someone when I’m gone._

 _“_ Good,” Moriarty praises smugly. “You got that, too.”

“Beats like digits,” Sherlock confirms, eidetic mind vividly recreating the drawing room and Moriarty, hand on knee, providing him with the code to rule the world. “Every beat is a one; every rest is a zero. Binary code.”

He watches Moriarty circle like a cat. “That’s why all those assassins tried to save my life. It was hidden on me; hidden inside my head—a few simple lines of computer code that can break into any system.”

Moriarty doesn’t even twitch. “I told all my clients: last one to Sherlock is a sissy.”

“Yes,” Sherlock reminds him, not triumphant—that might press Moriarty’s hand too quickly. There’s still information he needs. “But now that it’s up here, I can use it to alter all the records. I can kill Rich Brook and bring back Jim Moriarty.”

He waits for Moriarty to offer to deal, to praise, to respond—and is astonished when the psychopath closes his eyes in despair and turns away.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Moriarty cries inexplicably, burying his face in his hands. “This is too easy! It’s too easy!”

Sherlock freezes as the man advances on him, voice escalating in frustration and volume with every word. “There _is_ no key, DOOFUS!”

Sherlock’s shocked mind presents him with a memory of John, vibrantly alive and ready for the hunt.

> “Harry is short for Harriet.” Not triumphant. Almost teasing. “She and Clara broke up a month ago.”
> 
> “Harriet’s your sister.” Sherlock had sighed. “It’s always something.”

And it was, always. Something. But this time, Sherlock had had no room for error. He feels a chill, despite the sun beating on him.

“Those digits are meaningless,” Moriarty assures him. “They’re utterly meaningless.”

But why the code at all, then? Why bother…?

“You don’t really think a couple of lines of computer code are gonna crash the world around our ears? I’m disappointed.” He stamps away a few steps, a drone in a queue. “I’m disappointed in you, ‘Ordinary Sherlock.’ ”

Sherlock can’t help himself. He has to know. If he was wrong about this, what else is he wrong about?

“But the rhythm ...?”

Moriarty throws his hands out to his sides in disgust. “ _Partita Number 1._ Thank you, Johann Sebastian Bach!”

Sherlock’s mind goes into freefall for precious moments. Was he wrong about the other dangers, then? Had the apple, the lab work, the windows—had they all been so many red herrings, throwing him off his game? Utterly complex and utterly meaningless?

“But then how did—” he begins in confusion.

Moriarty cuts him off impatiently. “Then how did I break into the Bank, to the Tower, to the Prison?” Yes! “Daylight robbery!” he yells, again tossing his hands in disgust at the dense, boring, _ordinary_ people. “All it takes is some willing participants.”

Simple robbery, then? No magic codes, just the collusion of disgruntled employees looking for some extra money? Was it really so simple?

“I knew you’d fall for it,” Moriarty says with certainty. “That’s your weakness—you always want everything to be clever.” A curse. A filthy word. _50 kinds of tobacco ash, Sherlock!?_ the John in his head taunts him good-naturedly, even as Moriarty grinds on.“Now, shall we finish the game?”

Yes, the game. But can the game still end in Sherlock’s favor? Has he stacked the deck enough, given this monumental misstep? He’s always hated being wrong, but today, wrong can get so many very important people killed that he has to fight to focus.

“One final act,” Moriarty states, heading for the edge of the rooftop. “Glad you chose a tall building—nice way to do it.”

Five possibilities…. Perhaps even that was too clever. Maybe there always was only one choice here...

“Do it?” Sherlock whispers, still caught in his colossal misjudgement. “Do—do what?”

He can hear a voice in his head. John, Greg, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft—a combination of all of them and more. _Get on with it, Sherlock! Go on!_

He draws himself up, regaining his composure and steadying his voice. “Yes, of course,” he announces, as if he’d only just hit upon the possibility. “My suicide.”

Moriarty nods, not quite bored. “’Genius detective proved to be a fraud.’ I read it in the paper, so it must be true,” he says, sounding dull and slow. “I love newspapers. Fairy tales.”

Fairy tales. But no one to wake the sleeping prince. Not today. Sherlock walks willingly to the edge of the building, something inside him stilling and focusing as he spies two very specific figures milling about below.

Nothing, he reminds himself, is ever quite what it seems, in fairy tales.

“And pretty grim ones, too.”

Sherlock turns on the man, allowing desperation to seep into his voice. This will work. It has to work. “I can still prove that you created an entirely false identity.”

Moriarty is bored again. “Oh, just kill yourself. It’s a lot less effort.”

 

> _“I told you,” Donovan, cold, vindictive, the taunt of John half-heard as Lestrade’s men man-handled Sherlock down the stairs. “I told you the first day I met you. One day he’d get bored....”_
> 
> But John had been bored, too. Sherlock had seen it in his gait, in his eyes, in his bearing—that first day they met. Bored. Bored of civilian life, longing for the hunt…

“Go on.”

Will John hunt again, if Sherlock’s gone? Or will he again be bored?

“For me,” Moriarty wheedles behind him, his voice rising to a crazed pitch. “ _Pleeeeeease?_ ”

Anger at the situation and the steadily increasing likelihood that Possibility Five will have to do well up like lava, and Sherlock grabs his enemy’s coat, shoving him halfway over the edge. _You could end this right now,_ a voice says to him—sounding definitively Mycroft-like this time. _Kill him. Take the wrap, take the jail sentence and the ruined reputation and know that the three IOUs will never be repaid…_

Except that, looking into Moriarty’s face, feeling how the man is barely hanging on to Sherlock’s coat, as if he _wants_ Sherlock to let him fall, to end his part in the game, to go ahead and sacrifice the king when there are still so many pawns on the board that Moriarty’s unseen knights could still eliminate.

Possibility One simply vanishes. Moriarty’s death might even hasten the others.

Sherlock can barely utter words he’s said so casually so many times before. The diagnosis of his criminal has never meant so much before. “You’re insane.”

Moriarty feigns shock, mocking him. _“_ You’re just getting that now?” Sherlock almost loses it, then. His temper, his wits, his logic…. A little further over the edge. Inches, really.

But John…

As if to confirm his fears, Moriarty lets out a whoop of near joy, his lunacy washing over Sherlock coldly, pushing him farther off center…. He needs to focus. He needs confirmation. Answers.

“Okay,” Moriarty says, answering Sherlock’s unspoken pleas. “Let me give you a little extra incentive.” Sherlock forces himself to stillness within, pretending confusion in his face as he hears the words he knows are coming. “Your friends will die if you don’t.”

“John,” Sherlock whispers. That was always an absolute certainty—he’s know that since that day in Baker Street, after the trial. “ _I should get myself a live-in one.”_

Moriarty seems to like the look of pain he must fancy he sees in Sherlock’s eyes. “Not just John,” the madman murmurs. _“_ Everyone.”

“Mrs. Hudson.” An obvious target: John means home, but Mrs. Hudson isn’t far off it. Sherlock could have observed himself with her for no more than ten minutes before deducing that she was so much more than just his landlady. He lets that threat visibly hit home, not having to fake the extra layer of pain at the thought.

“ _Everyone,”_ Moriarty whispers again, gleeful.

_The windows across from Metro..._

“Lestrade.” Sherlock’s mind conjures an image of the DI as he last saw him: angry, frustrated, doubting… He’ll have to contact Mycroft again. Make sure Greg keeps his job….

He’s losing focus again.

“Three bullets; three gunmen; three victims. There’s no stopping them now.”

Moriarty’s smirk is more than Sherlock can take at the moment, and he struggles not to simply let the man drop and hope he’s quick enough to stop the ensuing slaughter. He knows he can’t be.

“Unless my people see you jump.” Which really is the crux of it all. Moriarty has no doubt had a sniper set on each of Sherlock’s friends for quite some time, waiting for just this moment….

Sherlock looks down at the street below.

Possibility Number Three. Two more recognizable figures have arrived... But there are two buses at the stand below... Blocking the way.

 “You can have me arrested,” Moriarty whispers in his ear. “You can torture me; you can do anything you like with me; but nothing’s gonna prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only three friends in the world will die ...”

Only three friends in the world.

 

> _“Men like him don’t have friends.” Donovan. She’ll be so proud._
> 
> _“What I said before was true. I don’t have friends, John.” LIAR. “I have one friend.”_

Moriarty’s voice is a snake in paradise. “Unless ...”

“I kill myself,” Sherlock finishes for him. Why aren’t the buses moving? For God’s sake, how long does it take to load a city bus!? Why does he have to worry about the three thousand little variables in this mad play? His voice continues as his mind moves on. “Complete your story.”

He senses Moriarty’s smirk in the murmured, “You’ve gotta admit, that’s sexier.”

Why? Why should it have to come to this? Was there a step he missed somewhere? “And I die in disgrace.”

The buses aren’t moving.

“Of _course_ ,” his companion takes his quiet defeated tone as a triumph and Sherlock lets him. “That’s the _point_ of this.”

Mulligan is standing at the bike rack below. He’ll be arranging their removal any moment now--”Construction, sir, sorry. Come on, then--we’re just about to close the street. Move your bus along!”

“Oh, you’ve got an audience now,” Moriarty observes brightly as people continue to mill about and load on and off the damn great red things. “Off you pop.”

Harris, heading for the lead bus…

“Go on,” Moriarty urges, as Sherlock steps past him and onto the ledge, hoping to get a better view of the proceedings.

 _“_ I _told_ you how this ends,” Moriarty reminds him relentlessly. Good _God_ , won’t the man shut up?

Sherlock looks down again, his vision of the scene unimpeded. Yes, Moriarty told him how this ends. Possibility Three. But he can’t--he knows he can’t. What it would do—to John and Mrs. Hudson, to Lestrade, even to Mycroft (oh, and wouldn’t his darling brother be furious, after all the work he’d put into this!)…. He tries to quiet his breathing as he watches a man in a city uniform enter the lead bus...

“Your death is the only thing that’s gonna call off the killers.” Moriarty’s voice comes from behind him, but Sherlock is focusing now. Nearly ready.

 _“I’m_ certainly not gonna do it.” Thank God, for over-confident geniuses.

_Like you, Sherlock._

Move them, Harris. Move them!

“Would you give me ...” Stall, Sherlock. Be plausible. “One moment, please; one moment of privacy?” Weak, but not too weak. “Please?” Ordinary, but not too ordinary.

“Of course,” Moriarty sighs, disappointed regardless.

The buses move on finally, replaced by an open-bed lorry, filled with mound upon mound of bags—trash or packing bits, Sherlock isn’t sure and doesn’t care. As long as it breaks the fall. Filth washes off.

In that second of relief, his mind catalogs everything. His hand slips into his left pocket, sending the text he wrote on his way up to the roof what seems eons ago.

John will be heading back by now. Mrs. Hudson was likely still dealing with the wiring problem in the hall. He’d see right away that she was fine--Sherlock can picture the irritated horror on his face...

He blinks as his mind replays Moriarty’s last words: _“Your death is the only thing that’s gonna call off the killers. I’m certainly not gonna do it.”_

Slow, Sherlock, he chides himself, breaking out a smile. Too slow. Almost missed it.

Oh, possibilities!

He begins to laugh. A full, rich, triumphant laugh, designed to infuriate.

“What?” Moriarty demands angrily, and Sherlock can hear him heading back toward the edge. “What is it?”

Sherlock turns to him, staying on the ledge where he can keep track of the street. But his phone buzzes silently in his pocket, and he grins a madman’s grin, hopping off of the ledge and meeting his foe halfway.

Moriarty is an enraged bulldog. “What did I miss?”

Sherlock repeats Moriarty’s words almost gleefully. “’ _You’re_ not going to do it.’ So the killers _can_ be called off, then--there’s a recall code or a word or a number.”

He’s finally in control. Call it Possibility Six. He circles an ever-more agitated Moriarty. “I don’t have to die,” he crows, choosing not to notice the similarity between his own taunting and his enemy’s. “If I’ve got you.”

“Oh!” Moriarty’s smile and laugh are completely expected. Sherlock feels his mind click into high gear. It’s a rush he hadn’t thought to feel again.

“You think you can _make_ me stop the order? You think _you_ can make me do that?”

High functioning sociopath, full-blown psychopath... not much of a leap, actually. And Moriarty knows it. He _wants_ it.

“Yes,” Sherlock murmurs, sounding as like Moriarty himself as he can. “So do _you_.”

Moriarty is still playing the game, but Sherlock can almost hear the man’s pulse pick up. Excitement. A junkie’s fix in the making. “Sherlock, your big brother and all the King’s horses couldn’t make me do a thing I didn’t want to.”

Sherlock stops in front of him, face as deadly serious as ever it has been. The world is riding on this, after all.

“Yes, but I’m not my brother, remember? I am you--” and in this moment, Sherlock realizes his words are complete truth-- ”prepared to do anything; prepared to burn; prepared to do what ordinary people won’t do.” He almost smiles. “You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you.”

Oh, Moriarty wants it to be true. He does, Sherlock can see it.

But he’s been disappointed before.

“Naah,” Moriarty murmurs sadly. “You _talk_ big... Naah. You’re ordinary. You’re _ordinary_ —you’re on the side of the angels.”

But he _wants_ it.

Sherlock uses his height, the blinding sun, the eerie silence found nowhere else in London but here--every advantage. He hears himself what seems years ago: _That’s what you do, to sell a big lie. You wrap it up in a truth to make it more palatable._ “Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I _am_ one of them.”

Moriarty searches his face, and finds only earnest madness. Because Sherlock knows he must be mad to believe that this might work.

But the loss if it doesn’t simply couldn’t be borne...

“No,” Moriarty agrees, and his wonder is shades of Sherlock’s own when he truly comprehended his enemy’s psychosis. “You’re not.” He blinks, and Sherlock blinks with him. Will this be enough? “I see. You’re not ordinary.” He sighs, almost at peace. “No. You’re me.”

His giggle is almost Sherlock’s undoing, but he knows he must convince Moriarty to the fullest. Once he’s got the recall code... He wishes Possibility One were a real option, as killing Moriarty might actually feel good at this moment. What was John’s justification for killing Hope? “He wasn’t a very _nice_ man”?

“You’re me!” the madman repeats. “ _Thank_ you!” His joy has him raising his arms for a moment, and Sherlock wonders if, bizarrely, the man means to embrace him as a kindred spirit. Instead, Moriarty lowers his arms. “Sherlock Holmes,” he breathes and offers his hand. After a long moment, Sherlock takes it.

“Thank you,” Moriarty repeats in a whisper. “ _Bless_ you.”

Sherlock feels the hand in his shake for one brief second. Now. The recall code, quickly.

 _“_ As long as I’m alive, you can save your friends.” Yes. Because, of course, in the end, even Moriarty isn’t mad enough to sacrifice himself for no reason. “You’ve got a way out.”

Finally...

“Well, good luck with that.”

Moriarty’s statement is punctuated by a vicious pull on the hand he’s holding. He opens his mouth obscenely wide and Sherlock finally sees his ultimate mistake.

It’s a bare second from the rasp of fabric against metal to the bang of the bullet, as Moriarty pulls out his gun and blows the back of his own skull out. In death, his hand relaxes and Sherlock pulls back, crying out as he jumps away from the now-cooling corpse.

In his panic, a corner of his mind copes by calculating the air temperature, the wind, and the size of Moriarty’s body to figure out exactly the rate at which the body will cool if left here on the roof.

Sherlock feels his coat pocket buzz again through the haze of shock.

Why would he do that? _Why_?

What... Moriarty couldn’t win this way! He couldn’t gloat...

_“You want me to shake hands with you in hell?”_

Sherlock pulls out his phone: the first text from Molly reads “Waiting... 35.2 deg and rising.”

No. No, Sherlock thinks. Moriarty’s temperature would be falling. Cold out today, regardless of the sun. Probably the same temperature as that other corpse now...

The second text reads “When is John here?”

John. He’ll be furious. He’ll be disappointed and betrayed and devastated and _furious._ But there’s no way out.

Sherlock stops dead on the roof.

Dear God, there really is no way out, now. Moriarty was the last chance he had. His mind pulls up the calculations again: the height of Old Path, the width of the sidewalk, the trajectory of an unassisted body in freefall...

John in his head: _Focus, Sherlock. Come on!_

“Yes, of course, John,” Sherlock mutters to himself. There’s nothing for it. It will have to do. Just the phrase in his head casts him back to last night and his abrupt abandonment of John after they’d confronted “Rich Brook.”

 

> He’d hailed a cab and headed toward Bart’s knowing Molly would still be there. He didn’t bother to worry about the cabbie overhearing him as he dialed his mobile. God knew, this time tomorrow, the man would probably have an exclusive with _The News._ “I drove Sherlock Holmes to his death!”
> 
> Because, of course, that was all he had left for Moriarty to take from him. The Final Problem, as it were. _I will burn the heart... right out of you._ All right, not all he had left. But all he was willing to relinquish.
> 
> Mycroft had answered the call in his usual clipped tones. “Holmes here.”
> 
> “Where is the body?”
> 
> “Ah, Sherlock!” Mycroft tried to sound his usual self, but he knew that Sherlock knew. And he was frightened of the response. “I was hoping--”
> 
> Sherlock had absolutely no time for it. “Where. Is. The body?” He scoffed loudly enough for his brother to hear clearly. “I know you have been keeping very close tabs on your friend _Jim._ God knows, you’ve spoken to him often enough in recent times. You know where he’s disposed of it.”
> 
> Mycroft didn’t even attempt to defend himself from the barb--or to lie about his knowledge. “In a morgue in Suffolk.”
> 
> “Not anymore,” Sherlock stated coldly, paying off the cabbie and stepping out at Giltspur Street. God willing there were no bullet wounds. Molly could never explain that away--if she was even willing to help. “It’s about to be transferred to St. Bart’s, care of Molly Hooper.” He headed for the gate, using his credentials for what was likely the last time. “There will be no paperwork.”
> 
> “Sherlock,” Mycroft had cautioned, sounding every bit the concerned older brother that Sherlock had no reason to believe he was. “If you are thinking of doing something... dramatic--”
> 
> “I will do what I must, dear brother,” he responded.
> 
> “But will it work?”
> 
> Sherlock took the back stairs at Old Path three at a time, plunging down toward the morgue. “It will have to do.”

It had better not be for nothing, he thinks, hoping perversely that John will hurry up and get here so they can have this over with.

A text to Harrison and he knows someone will be on the way up to attend to Moriarty, though he wonders if they should just leave him there. The great mystery of the day: “Boffin Sherlock Holmes and his trusty actor/enemy in a suicide pact.”

He shakes his head, two more texts flying from his fingers.

Finally, when all is ready, he calls up his contacts, pushes a button, gets a beep and nothing else. 

“Forget the code, it’s meaningless.” It all might be. Utterly. “ _Watch over them._ No matter what happens.” His hands are shaking. Shouldn’t be much longer before John gets here. He realizes the phone line is still open.

“Goodbye, dear brother. At least for now.”

As he hangs up, he spins round one more time. Still no bullet winging its way toward him--Moriarty obviously didn’t feel the need for backup. And why should he have? Sherlock knows now that Moriarty really did hold all the cards.

Except perhaps one, “dramatic” though it is. He thought he had every eventuality covered, but he finds himself suddenly stricken with a dithering panic he hadn’t planned for.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen, after all. Possibility Five was an... an intellectual lark. Something to keep his mind off of the realities of what was happening around him. A failsafe never needing to be used.

He isn’t supposed to lose it all in this game.

He glances in horror at the body behind him and tries to stifle a completely unexpected scream. He’s feared for his life before, God knows--but assassins after _him_ he can confront. Hidden guns, lying in wait for people whose only crime is knowing him? He’s horrified in a way he’s never dreamed of being.

This is, whether physical or not, the end of his life. But...

But, he calms himself forcibly, it _won’t_ be the end of John’s or Mrs. Hudson’s or Lestrade’s.

He steps up to the ledge, stands there in the wind as Mulligan looks up and meets his gaze. A taxi pulls up to the parking across the way, and John Watson gets out, heading with purpose toward Henry VIII gate.

Sherlock pulls the cellphone out of his right-hand pocket and dials John’s mobile. _He’ll be devastated..._ As it rings, he silently amends his previous thought.

 _I_ hope _it won’t be the end of John’s life..._

“Hello?” John. Hunting. Irritated with Sherlock, no doubt, but never letting that get in the way of the mission. No, John will survive, post-traumatic stress or no. He’ll never forgive Sherlock, but Sherlock can live with that so long as John does.

“John.”

“Sherlock, you okay?” And of course he knows Sherlock isn’t. He just doesn’t know how far that goes.

Sherlock calculates lines of sight and angles and a thousand other variables. John’s in entirely the wrong place. “Turn around and walk back the way you came. Now.”

I’m sorry.

“No, I’m coming in.” Dogged. Steadfast. Sherlock would laugh at his own sentimentality if he had it in him.

But all there is room for right now is horror. And a deep regret. “Just do as I ask. Please.”

And of course, without argument, John does it. “Where?”

Once he’s clear--or rather not clear--of the ambulance station and the lorry, Sherlock stops him.

“Sherlock?” _Let me help._

I’m sorry.

“Okay, look up. I’m on the rooftop.”

“Oh God.” John’s gasp is almost enough to undo Sherlock’s resolve, but a macabre image of John’s body lying still on the ground firms his voice after a moment. _Three bullets, three gunmen, three victims..._

“I ... I can’t come down, so we’ll ... we’ll just have to do it like this.”

“What’s going on?” John knows. He just doesn’t want to.

 

> _“No, I know you.”_
> 
> _“100 percent?”_

Apparently not. “An apology.” I am so sorry. “It’s all true.”

“Wh-what?” Not as if it shocks him into believing, but as if he can’t believe Sherlock would speak the words. It’s a lie and John knows it.

And Sherlock knows he knows. But he is also vividly aware that the police will have ordered a tap of his mobile, and John’s. Moriarty was right: he has an audience. “Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.”

He glances back at the corpse that has yet to be collected.

 

> _“You’re me!”_

_Or perhaps we invented each other._

John isn’t put off. “Why are you saying this?”

Somewhere, they’re listening. Sherlock Holmes, high-functioning sociopath, history of drug abuse and mental disorder, finally cracking. His voice cracks as well, to confirm the lie. “I’m a fake.”

“Sherlock …” John’s voice holds too much sympathy, and Sherlock finds his own tears a truth among the lies. He’ll miss this. This curious, unassailable friendship he hadn’t even known he needed until John had hobbled into the lab, bored and lonely, too.

“The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade; I want you to tell Mrs Hudson, and Molly--” _Thank you, Molly. “_ In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes.” Please, John. If they think for one moment you think I’m alive...

In the last two years, John has often shot down Sherlock’s “bullshit”. “Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up.” I’m sorry. “The first time we met ... the _first time we met_ , you knew all about my sister, right?”

The look on John’s face that day... “ _That was... brilliant.”_

“Nobody could be that clever.”

“ _You_ could.”

Sherlock laughs, because, for once today, he hasn’t miscalculated. No matter what, John Watson is never, ever, going to believe this. Molly told him as much last night.

_“He won’t believe it, you know?” she’d told him quietly. “Not ever. He just… can’t.”_

And she’s right, of course. John will never believe that Sherlock is a fraud, never believe he’s a charlatan….

But it is _absolutely_ necessary that he does believe Sherlock is dead.

Formalities first. The call must sound genuine--there must be a reason for the prowess of Sherlock Holmes. He must be proven _ordinary._ “I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you.” The next he says quietly, repeating an oft-used excuse by others when he’s upstaged them. “It’s a trick. Just a magic trick.” Somewhere in his mind, Sherlock pretends that last is a code for John. _If I can, I’ll be back. This isn’t real._

“No. All right, stop it now.” John’s had enough, and he’s moving. Too fast--too far!

 _“_ No, stay _exactly_ where you are. Don’t move!” Panic that is all too real.

“All right.” John reaches out his hand in that comforting way he has with the distraught. It’s vaguely annoying, infinitely reassuring, and perfectly fine, as he’s stopped now, still out of view of the corner.

Sherlock glances down briefly to check the street below and when he looks back up at John, he finds he’s raised his own hand unconsciously. It looks, from his perspective, as if their hands are touching.

He doesn’t lower his arm.

“Keep your eyes fixed on me.” You must, John. Your life absolutely depends on it. Fear for his friend sharpens his voice. ” _Please_ , will you do this for me?”

John is baffled. And terrified. “Do what?”

Recording... “This phone call. It’s my note. It’s what people do, don’t they--leave a note?” A note that will make the tabloids sing tomorrow.

He can see John fighting the knowledge of what’s going on here, shaking his head and pulling the phone from his ear as if not hearing it will make it not happen.

I’m sorry.

 _“_ Leave a note when?” John. Always needing to have things spelled out for you.

Even when you don’t _need_ things spelled out for you.

“Goodbye, John.”

I’m so sorry. He pushes send on the phone in his left-hand pocket--

“No. Don’t.”

I’m so very sorry.

\--tosses the phone in his hand to the roof behind him and throws his arms wide, hoping the extra wind resistance will carry him where he needs to go.

“No. _SHERLOCK!_ ”

He doesn’t need the phone to hear the scream.

Goodbye.

The fall is exhilarating. He hadn’t thought of that: that flying might be a rush. For those three seconds, he doesn’t worry about the body going out the second floor window or the “emergency team” that is waiting just inside the door or John or Lestrade, or anything except hitting the lorry instead of the ground.

When he does hit, it’s with a crack of metatarsals against the side of the truck and a whoosh of engulfing bags full of packing supplies. By the time he’s fought his way up to the top of the heap and can breathe through the pain in his foot, they’re already headed toward Chelsea.

He’s not sure whether or not he’s disappointed that he didn’t get one last glimpse of John. As he settles himself, trying not to scream for the agony, he realizes he’ll see for himself soon enough.

If not on Mycroft’s closed circuit cameras, then on the evening news.

 

********  
The End


End file.
